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15 Famous Women in Black

Witches, wives, and even Whoopi made this list of women who sport only the darkest uniforms.

The Woman in Black
Photo: CBS Films

This weekend, Daniel Radcliffe celebrates his first post-Potter effort with the release of The Woman in Black, a horror thriller about an axe-grinding female ghost who need only be seen to claim a child’s life. The veiled phantom surely has the edge when it comes to offing the little ones, but she hails from a long line of ladies who’ve gone all Hot Topic for the camera. Witches, wives, and even Whoopi made this list of women who sport only the darkest uniforms, making them scary, sexy, cool, sophisticated, and in some cases, all of the above.


Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Before she was merely a steaming pancake of soggy robes, Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West was the meanest bitch ever to wield a broom, and the standard by which every future cackler would be judged. Even her pointy silhouette is forever iconic, but given her getup, she needn’t be seen in shadow to give off that inky menace.


Anjelica Huston

Anjelica Huston in The Addams Family (1991)

Don’t torture yourself. That’s her job. Anjelica Huston’s Morticia Addams is, in many ways, the ebony-clad answer to Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestley, an aloof style icon with an affinity for French things and snobbery to burn. Look no further than her classic dig at Joan Cusack’s wacko in Addams Family Values: “You have married Fester, you have destroyed his spirit, you have taken him from us. All that I could forgive. But Debbie…pastels?”


Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932)

Ever an intoxicating canvas for Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich rocked what is perhaps her most famous feature-flattering costume in Shanghai Express, which saw the director dress his muse in this stunning creation of fabric and feathers. A drastic departure from Dietrich’s favored androgyny, the look is almost too glamorous. Call her the raven maven.


Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman in Black Swan (2010)

Pirouetting across the stage like an avian tornado, Natalie Portman gives Darren Aronofsky’s ballerina psychodrama its greatest moment with her climactic transformation, letting that black tutu all but consume Nina Sayers as she embraces the Black Swan. Surely this movie has its haters, but its tough to deny the thrill of that hallucinogenic showstopper, which launched thousands of 2011 Halloween costumes.

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Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act (1992)

She’s a nun! She’s a penguin! Much is made of the discomfort of the habits in Sister Act, especially when it comes to mob-moll-on-the-run Deloris van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg), who prefers the curve-hugging sequined numbers she wore in Vegas. Whoopi suffered through it, and though she may now wear Crocs and burlap sacks on The View, she was once one of the few people able to make nuns’ duds look cool.


Rebecca Romijn

Rebecca Romijn in Femme Fatale (2002)

Ten years ago, Rebecca Romijn had the fierce power to almost convince me I was straight, what with the goodies-for-everybody centerpiece striptease she offers in Femme Fatale. The word “slinky” might never be put to better use than in describing Romign’s 2002 physique, and yet more memorable is what she peels off of it here: an NSFW lingerie dress that disrobes in pieces like no-no paper doll clothes. The skirt slips off, the top does too, and soon it’s just hooker boots and underwear, which Romijn can remove in re-don in a kind of blink-and-miss-it magic trick.


Liza Minnelli

Liza Minnelli in Cabaret (1972)

There are plenty of memorable numbers in Cabaret, but the one that gave the film is signature Liza Minnelli image is Sally Bowles’s rendition of “Mein Herr,” in which Minnelli wears that all-black combo of bowler, choker, booty shorts, and thigh-highs that’s now graced virtually every bit of cover art the movie has produced. It’s good to know there’s something more indelible than the vision of her doing a “Single Ladies” split in Sex and the City 2.


Carrie-Anne Moss

Carrie-Anne Moss in The Matrix (1999)

Forever to be known as the woman who married catsuits with bullet time, Carrie-Anne Moss is fanboy royalty, her uzi-toting Trinity the Linda Hamilton of CG action. A perfect vessel for the sleek girl power injected into the Matrix trilogy, Moss seems born for genre films, and she trumps Keanu Reeves in the stone-faced ass-kicking department.

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Grace Kelly

Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954)

The dress for which Grace Kelly’s Lisa Fremont is best known is actually this knockout Edith Head number, which is more famous for its flowing white skirt than its plunging black bodice. But, for our purposes, let’s just stick with the belted outfit above, since everything Kelly wore in Rear Window was haute allure.


Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

Making it much more acceptable to salivate over a video game character, Angelina Jolie brought Lara Croft to life when she still had meat on her bones, and could ably fill out the tank top and shorts Croft paired with a skull belt and thigh-strapped pistols. For the Tomb Raider sequel, she’d don a silver wetsuit even better equipped to bring all the boys to the yard, but the look above remains the one that defines her heroine.


Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews in Victor Victoria (1982)

Offscreen, Diane Keaton may be the definitive suit-wearing woman, but onscreen, it’s all about Victor Victoria’s Julie Andrews, who plays the titular gender-bender (“The toast of Paris!”) in jackets and three-piece getups as crisp as that perfectly slicked hairdo. The second musical on this list, Blake Edwards’s showpiece predated the many modern cross-dressing dramas, and even inspired a Glee reimagining (what doesn’t) with Kurt in the Andrews role.


Noomi Rapace

Noomi Rapace in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Yes, Rooney Mara gave us the sexier, more Oscar-y take on Lisbeth Salander, but we’re frankly sick of talking about her. So let’s wind it back to original Nordic hacker Noomi Rapace, whose all-black wardrobe, like its wearer’s performance, was a lot more homespun and believable than the meticulously tattered style in Dragon Tattoo a la Fincher.


Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns (1992)

And speaking of tattered, few haphazardly stitched-together garments have ever looked so good as Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman suit in Batman Returns, a scarred costume of feral rebirth that’s made of the remnants of the old Selina Kyle. She may look inviting, but she may also put aerosol cans in your microwave and play tic-tac-toe on your face.


Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The LBD is epitomized by the costuming of Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly, who, by now, has surely had her likeness emblazoned on more merchandise than Hello Kitty. The updo, the pearls, the long black gloves—it’s a wonder how many women have worn this outfit in front of Tiffany’s with a coffee and a pastry.


Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box (1921)

Louise Brooks was only 21 when she starred in G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box, but she was more than ready to make eternal style statements, and her inclusion in this list would be justified by that pitch-black bob alone. But teamed with the darkly ethereal priestess attire she wears in Lulu’s courtroom scene, that sharp-edged helmet of hair becomes the capper of both a perfect black look and the perfect signature shot of this chiaroscuro classic.

R. Kurt Osenlund

R. Kurt Osenlund is a creative director and account supervisor at Mark Allen & Co. He is the former editor of Out magazine.

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